READING COMP HELP. Forum

[lawschoolgirl312]

can people give me your tips on how you improved in reading comp? How you mark up the passage? I am getting so desperate

[cbbinnyc]

If you haven't looked at it yet, Powerscore's book on Reading Comp is pretty solid, IMO. RC wasn't really a focus for me in studying for the LSAT, but, as a test prep tutor (been teaching SAT/ACT/etc for 8 years now), I found Powerscore's book on RC enlightening and I have started to incorporate variations of their techniques into my teaching. I think the most important thing is to really nail down the various viewpoints being expressed in each passage. There's a drill in the PS book where you just go through a passage and underline anything that expresses a viewpoint and label which party it should be attributed to. If you come away from a passage with a really clear idea of what viewpoints are being expressed and by whom, you are in pretty good shape.

[lawschoolgirl312]

hi, i have just finished the powerscore reading bible. my question now is... what happens when you don't have a lot to mark for the readings? I have been on the look out for direction changer words, tone, viewpoint, and i always finish the passage with asking myself what the main idea was..but i still always end up missing at least 2 questions per reading passage.
What am I doing wrong??

[zeglo]

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[splitterfromhell]

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[CPAlawHopefu]

Marking up text is not necessary to perform well. Too much mark ups is a huge hindrance to your performance. I used to mark up tons (underlines, circles, boxes, brackets, symbols, summaries) and average -8 to -12 a section.

Now I hardly do any mark-ups other than circling specific names and underlining ONLY the main point of the passage (this typically happens during the scan process AFTER I finish reading the whole passage). I also put +/- sign next to lines that cites proponents/critics of an idea ("+" for proponents, "-" for critics). Now I average -0 to -1 a passage (-2 to -4 a section).

I read many contrasting opinions regarding the best approach to RC. Some suggest taking as much as 5 minutes in understanding the passage inside out so it becomes easier to answer the questions. Some suggest not taking too much time on reading (just enough to understand the main point and the structure), and take more time on each question for accuracy. It may differ by individual, but I'm the type of person that prefers the latter approach because I find that RC is by far the most detail-oriented section in the LSAT, so I tend to slow down on inference questions.

[zeglo]

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[splitterfromhell]

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[zeglo]

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[Tiddlywinks]

The only way to get good is to start reading the passages like you actually care about what they're saying. I was constantly getting -6+ and underlining and that jazz. Reading passages fast and skimming to get to questions fast... Yeah no. Nothing really helped. I read the Manhattan RC and eh, not much improvement. The only thing that stuck was making sure you understand what you're reading at the end of each paragraph. Once I started reading things like oh so this is why the ecosystem works with that theory! The questions became a joke. Once I switched it and approached each section like that, i started to miss 1-2. Being engaged in the dry content is key. FWIW, missed 2 on Dec LSAT.

[teamlam]

Just buy the Cambridge bundles and drill the RC. They separate the RC's into different caterogies ie Law, Natural Sciences etc.

After drilling a bunch of these, the next time you read a passage, you'll know what to skim, what to pay attention to, and you'll be able to find the answers to "gimme questions" much eaiser ie Authors tone question.